State Security downfall , Alexandria, 4-5th March 2011

The following is my testimony of what happened last night at the State Security head quarters of Alexandria , Egypt that ended in bringing down the State Security in Alexandria as well as the arrest and killing of its officers in addition to the retrieval of some of the documents that were there , I apologize in advance for any grammatical or spelling mistakes as I am writing it in a hurry and I have no brains to edit or proof read at the moment, this is just to state the facts I have witnessed.

Last night I received a call from a friend of mine telling me that the state security officers are shooting unarmed protesters who were gathered in a peaceful demonstration around the State Security head quarters in Alexandria, my initial reaction was asking about the army’s position to which I was told that they left.

I’ve never been to the state security before, and all my information about it was drawn from friends’ stories and movies.

So we went there to see exactly what is happening and to help the people there as we are still medical personnel’s so when we arrived at around 9 pm what I saw was smoke coming out from the head quarters, hundreds that soon became thousands of people around and a few army officers, the smell of tear gas was everywhere as well as fired bullets with some of the people.

People were shouting and yelling throwing stones at the building that always responded by throwing back anything from something that looked like water but with a really bad smell to stones, wooden pieces or literally anything , but as I was there no tear gas bombs were thrown, then the sound of guns started filling the space, probably they were firing in the air but everyone -who is by now and after what seems to be countless days of people Vs security battles- is trained enough to dodge the bullets.

A group of people managed to get in and started throwing documents from the inside out to save them from destruction by the SS officers , those documents were being collected and delivered to the army that by now was still small numbered compared to either protesters or SS officers.

Some people wanted to take the documents themselves or destroy them so the rest of us made a human shield with the army officers to protect the documents and make sure that it will be delivered safely, the amount of documents was unbelievable whether intact, shredded or burnt so it was obvious that there is no way they can be all transported however what we managed to get our hands on was delivered to the army and was put in their tanks.

Every once in a while gun shots were heard again, some are injured whether army officers or protesters until a secret door was found to the SS head quarters which was a building next to the HQ that looked like a mosque but from the inside it has a door that leads to the SS directly, once that entrance was found hundreds of people got in as well as army officers and sound of fights was heard from the outside.

The army tried to convince the people to let them arrest the SS officers peacefully and they will be prosecuted but many of the people were against that, they wanted them killed NOW.I am for one didn’t think that it is right, coz if we are accusing them of randomly killing people we shouldn’t be randomly killing them as well ,but when I tried to talk with those who were for the killing right now right here to the extent that they were lying infront of the army tanks so that SS’s don’t get to escape in them and those were; a young man who was detained and tortured there before to the extent that he was neutered, a woman who lost her son, a girl who lost an eye ,a man who hasn’t heard of his brother for years and many more with heart breaking stories that it seemed impossible to talk them out of taking their revenge with their own hands , and they obviously don’t trust the army based on them being always neutral even during the shooting that took place earlier and as far as I know four young men were shot and badly injured.

Inside the SS headquarters there was:

A lavish very well equipped Gym and living rooms with comfy chairs and LCD screens

Underground cells

Huge stock of food and drinks

Enormous amounts of shredded papers and documents

Signs on the wall one of which said” trusting someone is the first step to being defeated” this is a rough translation to “الإطمئنان أول طريق الانهيار”

Hand cuffs with pins that are to be inserted in the flesh ,some of which has blood on them

Hooks in the ceiling of one of the rooms where people used to be hung on them

A lot of other devices that I have no idea how they were used some of which looked like a keyboard with a joystick

Electrifying devices

Files about literally everyone from copies of CVs , lists of club members ,files with the names of college students or even people at the general assemblies of any entity be it a club , a company , a school or anything.

The SS officers were hiding in locked rooms and they didn’t even let the army in until these rooms were forcefully opened by the people and a blood fest was in order.

For the record and from a humanitarian point of view I am totally against generalizing and I am sure that among the SS officers that were brutally beaten up and killed there were innocent people and I am sure as well that many innocent people were held ,tortured and killed at the State Security head quarters and I have no idea who is to be held accountable to that mess , is it the army who has been too neutral , or Shafik’s government that kept on delaying the suspension and the insurance of fair trials to the SS’s.

At the end what I am sure of and what any government or official in Egypt should be sure of as well is that; we the Egyptian people has zero tolerance for being randomly shot, killed, injured, beaten, tortured or detained and in minutes we can gather and unite against any entity that violates our rights , all what we are asking for and I believed we have earned it the hard way is to be respected and treated as humans that have rights and more importantly a voice that will never be silenced again.

Thanks Zyad, although some information you mentioned are so hurtful, but sadly its the truth.
what i am sure of is that the good is yet to come, and we are on the righ track for the 1st time since the 50’s.

wow! amazing. I am so sad for all of the Egyptian people, and all of the stories i have heard. I can’t imagine growing up in a country like this being a US citizen. Yes there is injustice all over the world. But the brutality of these stories breaks my heart. I dont know how people can hold jobs that this kind of brutality is a daily basis for them. God Bless all people in all countries right now fighting for their right to live as human beings. thank you for your story Zyad. You are courageous and brave like all of the Egyptian people right now.

Thanks for sharing Zayed, horrifying what you found there! hats off to the brave ones, without them (you) the world would not know of what really was happening behind the scenes. lets hope for a way towards transparency and respecting human rights in egypt and everywhere.